Fellowship Description

This summer, I am participating in the Ignited Fellowship hosted by Genentech's Gene Academy in South San Francisco. Gene Academy is Genentech's community engagement and STEM education program, which partners with the South San Francisco Unified School District. Once a week throughout the school year, elementary students ride a school bus to Genentech's campus, where they meet one-on-one with employee mentors to work on homework and participate in hands-on science activities that build curiosity, confidence, and interest in STEM.

Gene Academy began in 2008 as a pilot serving a single third-grade classroom of 24 students. Since then, it has grown to serve more than 170 students annually while engaging over 340 employee mentors. As students from the original pilot progressed through school, Genentech expanded its support by creating additional programs for middle and high school students, along with the Futurelab Scholarship Program. Today, Gene Academy is recognized as a cornerstone of South San Francisco's STEM education ecosystem, demonstrating how schools, industry, and community partners can work together to create a continuous pathway of opportunity for students.

As part of the Gene Academy curriculum, I am designing art-based innovation activities that encourage students to imagine, create, and make things. While Gene Academy has traditionally emphasized science, not every student immediately sees themselves as a future scientist or engineer. Beginning this coming school year, a new art-based innovation experience will be introduced every other week to complement the existing science curriculum. Many students naturally connect with art as a way to express ideas and explore possibilities. By using art as a low-risk entry point into STEM, students build confidence in their creativity, develop an innovation mindset, and begin to see themselves as capable problem-solvers.

Fellowship Connection to School/Classroom

What Genentech has built with the South San Francisco Unified School District is truly special. Partnerships like this take years to develop, but they also raise an important question: How might something similar begin in my own community of Fremont?

This Educational Transfer Plan (ETP) uses the City of Fremont and the Fremont Unified School District as a case study for exploring that question. Currently, Fremont's STEAM pathway begins in sixth grade, when students first take an innovation course, and continues through middle school and high school with STEAM and Career Technical Education (CTE) pathways.

This ETP explores a different possibility: What if art-based innovation began earlier—starting in grades TK–5? Art provides a low-risk, accessible entry point into STEM while allowing students to express their creativity and explore ideas. Just as importantly, innovator identities begin forming in elementary school. By introducing innovation experiences earlier, schools can help more students see themselves as creative thinkers, problem-solvers, and future contributors to their community's STEAM ecosystem.

In exploring this question, this ETP also provides practical resources for three teacher audiences: educators implementing an art-based innovation experience with students, educators leading professional learning for colleagues, and educators scaling an innovation pilot into a sustainable educational program.

The Bringhurst Innovation Club in the Fremont Unified School District serves as the pilot case study for this ETP. It demonstrates (1) how art-based innovation provides an accessible entry point into STEM and (2) how elementary innovation experiences can become the beginning of a community STEAM pathway. The pilot offers a transferable model that other schools and districts can adapt to develop their own elementary innovation pathways.

About Kristine Tsung

Ignited Fellow 2026

Author: Kristine Tsung

Ignited Coach: I-Heng McComb.